


A Rough Day

by Ms_Julius



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 11:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17243696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms_Julius/pseuds/Ms_Julius
Summary: It hasn't been the best of days in the K-science wing, what with the winter's arrival and the temperature dropping.After a while of work, Hermann finds himself stuck on the ladders. Luckily for him, he is not alone in the lab.





	A Rough Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Novicity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Novicity/gifts).



> A late X-mas present for @Novicity !  
> Hope you enjoy, I am sure to write more of these two *wink*

It had been a long day. A long, quiet, and terribly rough day.

Leaning over his dissection table, Newton let out a wide yawn, ignoring the way his weight made the table wobble. He had come to work early that day, early enough that one might argue there really hadn’t been a point to go back into his quarters for the night. It was a new pet project of his, it kept his mind occupied even when he wasn’t in the lab, and so as soon as he’d opened his eyes that morning, he had rushed back to work. Hermann, unsurprisingly, had beaten him to it. The man had already been up on his ladders by time Newton bursted through the door.

But after the initial excitement, Newton found his power levels dropping. Maybe it was the badly slept night, or the fact that the lab was uncomfortable cold now that the winter months were creeping on the base. Coldness always made him droopy. It was good for his samples, sure, but Newton himself didn’t do well in extreme cold temperatures.

And judging from the way Hermann was muttering to his black boards, neither did he.

“Hermann! Yo, Herms!”

When his calls fell for deft ears, Newton picked up one of the less important pieces of kaiju he had at hand and tossed it over the line separating his side from Hermann’s. “Hey, dude! You still alive up there or what?”

“Yes, Newton!” Hermann snarled, turning partly around to glare down at the man currently prancing over their sacred line. “Do you mind? Some of us are actually attempting to get our work done!”

Newton huffed. “Come on! You’ve been staring at that same number for ten minutes now.”

“If you have time to pay so much attention to my boards, perhaps it indicates that you should put more effort into your experiments!”

Hermann was turning red, a display of emotion Newton adored. So rare to get any reaction of Hermann, and these were the most juicy ones.

“Hard not to notice when you aren’t constantly climbing back and forth on those ladders of yours! I mean do you even know how much noise they make when you rattle around with them? It’s been so quiet today that I thought you died up there!”

“Well that’s because -”

The end of the sentence never came. As Newton glanced upwards, just about to share more of his opinions about his lab partner’s work style, he saw Hermann’s rigid body standing very still.

“Hermann?”

The pale fingers curled over the wooden sides of the ladder.

“Uhh, buddy? Everything okay?” A slight ball of worry began to form in his stomach. ”You coming down?”

The figure above him coiled more tightly against the blackboard, and in the silence Newton heard the shallow breathing coming from the narrow, heaving chest.

“Alrighty then, that is a definite nope,” Newton said, taking a quick look around him in the lab. There usually was a spare pair of metal ladders nearby. “I swear to god, if I’ve gotta come and drag you down from there -”

“No!”

Newton’s head snapped up, his eyes nailed to Hermann’s widened ones staring back at him. He was still squeezing the wood poles hard enough to turn his knuckles white, and from what Newton could see, he was not about to let go anytime soon.

“Well how the hell are you gonna get back to the floor, dumbass?” Newton had never been much use when it came to comforting. “You wanna jump, huh? Or do I go and get the Rangers here so they can scoop you down -”

“I cannot move!”

The desperate, broken note of the shout stopped Newton mid-sentence. When he saw Hermann’s body shaking with effort, a weak attempt to maintain his grip of the ladder, Newton realized the severity he was dealing with. Hermann sounded... pained. Nothing like his usually calm and collected voice. Newton’s mind was flooded by a sudden mental image of Hermann losing his balance and smacking into the metal floor below, the ladders following soon after.

Above him, a faint intake of a breath echoed in the room.

“Newton...”

Hermann was gritting his teeth, Newton could see that much. He saw the bony fingers tremble, their grip of the wood slipping.

Before he could think it too deeply, Newton was already half the way up on the ladder. The blackboard offered some extra support, and soon he was lining himself closely behind Hermann’s back, his chest pressing against the thick fabric of formal jacket. It was a bit difficult to keep his own balance while simultaneously trying to get a good hold of Hermann, but after a moment of fumbling Newton wrapped his left arm tightly around Hermann’s middle, tugging him even closer to his chest and taking the majority of their shared weight.

In front of him Hermann gasped. “Newton, what...”

“I’m helping you out, man!” With a grunt, Newton hoisted them both in a better position to start the trip down. “Now, I’mma keep it real for you, Hermann. This seemed far less complicated in my head.”

“I could have done without knowing that, thank you!”

Together, one shaky step at the time, they climbed towards the floor. It took some maneuvering, and a few near-falls from Hermann’s part, but eventually they were standing side by side at the bottom of the wall of blackboards. Flushed, out of breath, but in one piece, which Newton considered to be a complete success in his books.

“Okay, so.” He leaned in, concealing the heavy puffing of his chest by coughing. “As I was saying about those squeaky ladders...”

His teasing was cut short when he saw he way Hermann’s face was fixed into a strained grimace. He was still clutching the ladder, and he was swaying slowly from side to side. Under Newton’s gaze, he tipped forward, barely catching himself before his forehead hit the wood as well.

Newton jumped on his feet and basically ran across the room to the small medicine cabinet they had stashed in the far corner of the lab. It was filled with bandages (for Newton, mostly), disinfection swipes and a great amount of bottles containing painkillers of different strengths. He grabbed one from the stronger end, slammed the door shut and made his way back over to the boards where Hermann had taken a seat on the lowest spoke. His hands were shaking slightly when Newton pushed the pills to him.

“Here. You wanna glass of water or something with them or -” Before he finished, Hermann had tossed the tablets into his mouth, swallowing with a scowl as they went down. Newton watched as Hermann worked his jaw for a while, pressing the palm of his hand against his eye socket while leaning backwards against the ladder. The pained look on his face caused Newton to shift his weight from foot to foot.

“Should I call the medics? I feel like I should totally call the medics.”

Hermann’s posture shot up straighter. “No, it won’t be necessary!” Apparently noticing the disbelieving look Newton was giving him, he hurried on, “It’s merely a cramp. A bad one, I admit, but nothing worth of bothering the doctors over.” His eyes darted downwards, casting a nasty look at his own body. “It tends to act out during winter.”

“I dunno, dude. Looks pretty painful to me,” Newton said, squatting on the floor next to Hermann. His eyes followed the line of Hermann’s pants, coming to a stop and settling on the upper part of his leg. “It’s an old one, huh? Been troubling you for long.”

It wasn’t really a question, more of a statement. Newton was a man of biology. He recognized a long-term injuries when he saw them, and Hermann had been forced to be around him for years at this point. Newton would have to be a full-blown idiot if he’d failed to take a notice. And as his profession suggested, Newton knew his way through the human body even if he had specialized in alien’s. He could help. He _wanted_ to offer his help.

“Y’know, I could always give it a go.” His throat felt too dry all the sudden. “I mean, if you allow me to.”

“What on earth are you babbling about?” Hermann asked, frowning. He was rubbing his own hand over his thigh, forcing the muscles to give in. Without a word, Newton bent forward and pushed his fingers aside.

“That’s a poor angle, Herms,” he muttered, running his thumbs up Hermann’s leg. “You won’t get enough pressure like that, see?” He pressed down hard, making Hermann groan out and lean more towards Newton for balance. He continued to knead the muscles beneath the fabric, and after a few minutes of silence Newton felt Hermann fingers landing on his shoulders, allowing Newton to take once again more of their weight as he worked. Little by little Newton forced his way past the tense, cramping pieces of flesh, massaging the pain away with his determined movements and confident presses of thumbs.

It went on for several minutes, nearing a half an hour before Hermann tapped carefully at Newton’s shoulders, tilting himself back and out of Newton’s hold. His cheeks were burning, and his hair was sticking out in ridiculous shapes. Newton, however, refrained from commending.

For now.

“I, ah...” Hermann said, the blush rising higher. “Thank you, Newton.”

A wide grin spread over Newton’s lips. “Anytime, buddy.” He groaned loudly and stood up, cracking his back as he went. “Couldn’t just leave you like that. How messed up would that be?”

“Quite.” Hermann was still sitting down, rubbing a hand over his leg. It was nothing but an instinctive habit he’d picked up as a child. The pain was mostly gone, and despite the painkillers playing some part in that equation, Hermann knew for a fact he wouldn’t be feeling so good purely because of them. The massage had helped immensely, and as surprised as he was to admit it, Hermann had to give Newton more than a bit of credit. The man was good at what he did. Never before had Hermann came out of a cramp with such a high sense of ease.

But just as he was about to say at least part of this out loud, Newton was already on the move, sprinting to the little kitchen area they had in the lab and knocking over few things once he made it to the counter. He pulled open cabinet doors, peering inside and leaving half of his finding on the table after moving to the next one.

“Tea would help you too, right? There’s a pack of cookies here somewhere, and I swear I saw a new bottle of honey when Mako last visited...”

Smiling once Newton had his back turned, Hermann leaned against the uneven surface of his ladder, and let out a silent sigh, low enough for only him to hear.

“That would be perfect, Newt.”


End file.
